An Intelligent Thing to Do

By Richard V. Allen

Published: November 14, 2003

EDWARDS, Colo.—
The White House has finally agreed to allow the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks to read parts of the same intelligence reports the president read every morning in the months leading up to the attacks. As commission members begin to review these briefings, they may be forgiven for asking: what was all the fuss about?

For several months the Bush administration refused to release the reports, known as the President's Daily Brief. Under the agreement announced this week, some members of the commission will be able to read parts of some briefs. The White House will still be able to edit the reports to remove material unrelated to the commission's work.

Some members of the commission have criticized the deal, and some victims' families have asked that the agreement be made public. But the debate over the reports has been not only perplexing but also misleading. The administration generally, and the White House in particular, has cooperated with the commission, turning over huge quantities of relevant information. With this agreement, President Bush shows that the administration has nothing to hide.

Very few know, of course, what these reports will reveal. But the President's Daily Briefing -- and I speak generally but from experience -- is neither as secret nor as exclusive as many people think. Its distribution is curiously wide, and often some of the information in one day's briefing finds its way on to the next day's front page.

The document is prepared overnight by the C.I.A., frequently edited by the national security adviser, and made available to the president every morning. It contains written reports from various sources, maps, satellite photographs, relevant fragments of intercepted communications of all sorts, and the like.

It is, at best, a form of staccato information, a news digest for the very privileged. But it is rarely predictive. In fact, some would consider it pedestrian, even anodyne. On rare occasions, officials will note items of special interest to the president and forward them to national security staff members for further analysis.

Still, the briefing is for the president's eyes, and that makes it a highly coveted item. It is also read by the vice president, the secretaries of defense, state and treasury, the president's chief of staff, the national security adviser and others, especially in the C.I.A. For those who are allowed to read it, it is a source of bragging rights. Curious staff members everywhere sneak a peek if they can.

The briefing's allure persists even though it has not always been treated with care. In the Reagan administration, a copy went to a deputy chief of staff whose main function was public relations and who had no background or knowledge of foreign affairs or national security. This person probably never read the briefing. Another official on the distribution list had an assistant store his copies in the official's garage at home. The documents were and destroyed.

We can expect the members of the commission to treat the president's intelligence briefings with better care. And while we shouldn't expect them to find a smoking gun, we can hope that their work will deepen their understanding, and ours, of how much the government knew about the terrorist threat that was at our door.

Richard V. Allen, national security adviser from 1980 to 1982, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.